There is supposedly a "Brewers' Row" in St. Louis that runs the length of Manchester Road. It was explained to me that if you start at our Side Project brewery in Maplewood and travel east on Manchester, you can visit 8 breweries, ending at our friends at 4 Hands near downtown. Meaning that Side Project and 4 Hands provide the "Bookends" to the unofficial St. Louis "Brewers' row."

We sat down with Kevin, Martin and Andy of 4 Hands Brewing Company more than a year ago to start talking about some collaborations. We first wanted to get some Side Project / 4 Hands collaborations in oak to allow them to age and then we would continue to work together on some Shared / 4 Hands IPA collaborations that we will brew in the near future.

For our first collaboration, we barrel-fermented a Missouri Wild Ale that started life as a Saison malt bill, that was fermented entirely in wine barrels with a Saison yeast that was blended with our house Side Project cultures. We really wanted to go a different direction with the fruit that we chose for this beer and ended up going a route that neither of us had really pushed before by using a thoughtful, but aggressive amount of citrus in the kettle and at packaging.

We brewed this beer with the juice from Limes and Mandarin Oranges, Sweet and Bitter Orange Peel and then conditioned it with the juice from Clementines. We allowed this beer to ferment and age in the same oak barrels for more than a year before blending, bottling and letting it naturally condition.

On July 14th, at both The Side Project Cellar and the Side Project Brewing Tasting Room, we will have bottles available to go and we will also be tapping a keg at each location to allow to taste the loads of vibrant orchard fruit acidity from our native Side Project cultures, plus the added citric quality from the citrus fruit that we chose to meld into this beautiful sour beer!

Allocations will be based on the turnout and some of the 4 Hands crew will be stopping by to hang out and say hi as well. Hope to see you this weekend!